Diamond Fire

The next room over was occupied by Ane, Mrs. Rogan’s half sister, who had arrived with a boy toy, as Arabella put it. The boy toy was in his late twenties, blond, blue-eyed, pretty, and went by Paul Sarmiento. Ane didn’t work, relying on her portion from the family investments as income. Paul didn’t have a criminal record and Rogan’s people couldn’t find his fingerprints in any of the databases, but it wasn’t clear what he actually did for a living. I put a check mark by his name.

Finally, in the far south, we had Iker and Eva Ramírez. Iker, Ane’s only child, had olive skin and dark blond hair and was an architect. He’d been working at his firm for the last four years. His wife was petite and delicate. She had started her career as an actress, but that went out the window when she married Iker. They had only one child, Xavier.

“One thing I don’t understand,” Leon said, sliding one gun part into another. He did this without looking down, as if his hands were on autopilot. “Why did they steal the Sealight? They’re all rich.”

“Let me see a picture of it again,” Grandma Frida asked.

I pulled up an image of the Sealight and showed it to her.

Grandma Frida squinted and tapped the aquamarine. “There’s your answer.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s about money. The Sealight is appraised and insured for two hundred and fifty thousand, mostly because of its age and the small diamonds framing the aquamarine. The aquamarine heart is worth probably seventy-five thousand by itself. The three black sheep siblings each receive over a million dollars annually from the family’s investments. For doing nothing.”

“Must be nice,” Mom said.

Arabella frowned. “So if they’re caught stealing the tiara, they will almost certainly be cut off. Would you risk an easy million to steal something worth a quarter of that?”

Bern clapped his hands. “You did the math in your head, I’m so proud.”

Arabella flipped him off.

“I saw that,” Mom snapped.

“Sorry.” My sister didn’t sound sorry.

“Even if they did steal it,” I said, “what would they do with it? None of them have been in the US in the past five years. They don’t know any fences and no legitimate jeweler would touch it. If you google it, the picture of it comes up as ‘The Sealight Crown, heirloom of House Rogan.’ Nobody in Texas would touch something stolen from Mad Rogan. They couldn’t give it away.”

“Maybe they’re planning to take it home,” Arabella said.

“They would have to declare it at the airport,” Leon said.

“How do you know that?” Mom asked.

“He checked into transporting guns by air,” Arabella said.

Mom stopped filling the dishwasher and gave Leon a hard stare.

“Just trying to be prepared, that’s all,” he said.

I leaned back and sighed. “They can’t sell it and they can’t take it home. So, it’s not about the money.”

“Well, what is it about then?” Grandma Frida asked.

“It’s about Mrs. Rogan, Connor, or Nevada,” I said. “Either they hate Mrs. Rogan or Connor, and they want to embarrass them, or they hate Nevada and they don’t want her to have it. Which is why she can’t know, and we have to handle it and never tell her.”

“Agreed,” Bern said.

“So, basically, you have to figure out who hates Rogan and Nevada the most,” Arabella said. “Is Xavier a suspect?”

Die.

Grandma Frida came to life like a shark smelling a drop of blood in the water. “Who is Xavier?”

“Nobody.” What a brilliant response I came up with. That will throw them off the scent. Not.

“Xavier is Rogan’s cute cousin, aaannd he likes her,” The Evil Hellspawn Sister said.

“If you think he’s cute, then you should talk to him,” I said.

Arabella made big eyes at me. “She told him her name and he said, ‘I know.’”

Grandma Frida and Leon made woo woo noises at me.

My cheeks were getting warm. I hated when my cheeks got warm.

“You should go for it,” Grandma Frida said.

That was about enough. “Mom.”

“What happened to that handsome Italian boy?” Grandma Frida asked.

“She ran him off,” Leon said. “She told him to get off our land or she would call the law.” He had growled “the law” like he had a mouth full of gravel.

They were talking about me as if I wasn’t even there. “Mom!”

“Let her be,” Mom said. “She’s trying to do a job.”

“Maybe you should give it a try,” Grandma Frida said. “You’ve been doing good with your magic.”

“Yeah,” Leon said. “And if things don’t work out, I can always shoot him, and nobody will ever find the body.”

I took my tablet and files and went to my room.

I stood next to the ladder in Iker and Eva’s room and watched Rivera install a tiny camera into the smoke detector. Rivera was one of Rogan’s top guys. Normally he was trim and clean-cut, but today he was wearing a wig under a grimy baseball cap and his jaw sported a dark two-day stubble. He looked ridiculous.

Each of the guest couples had a suite and we were bugging the living rooms. Outside, Simone, one of Rogan’s surveillance specialists, was installing hummingbird cameras in the bushes.

“Hey,” Xavier said behind me.

I managed to not jump and turned around. He leaned casually against the door frame. Right. It was his room too.

“Hi,” I managed.

“Hi,” he said.

I’d spent a long time on the drive over to Mountain Rose thinking about what to do if I saw Xavier. I had promised Arabella I would talk to him. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at talking to people, especially people my age. In the end, I decided I had to talk to Xavier. Not just because he was cute and seemed to want to talk to me, but also because he was a potential lead. He was a teenager and a member of Rogan’s extended family. Adults generally viewed us as children, whether they were willing to admit it or not, and they often said things around us without thinking.

Once I decided that Xavier was work, things became a lot easier. I just had to get him to like me without using my magic.

“Do you need something from the room? We’re almost done.”

“No, I just saw you through the window and wondered what you were doing in my suite. What are you doing?”

He sounded like he suspected we had gone through his underwear drawer. Rivera rolled his eyes.

“We’re checking all the smoke detectors and replacing the batteries,” I lied.

“Why?”

“Mrs. Rogan is worried that if a fire breaks out, some people might not get out.”

“Each room in this wing has French doors that open to the garden,” Xavier said. “Don’t you think it’s a bit extra? We’re not likely to get trapped and most of us are telekinetics.”

He seemed like the poster boy for the “adults are unreasonable and lame” crowd. I went through that phase too. When I was twelve. “True. But, she’s paranoid and I have to do this. You know how it is.” I shrugged. “Old people.”

Xavier grinned and glanced at Rivera, then back at me. “Do you have to supervise, or can I steal you away for a little bit? I need your help with something.”

Rivera’s eyes got a dangerous glint. I had to get Xavier out of here before he asked too many questions or said something Rivera would make him regret.

“You got this?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Rivera said.

“Please let me know when you’re finished.” I turned to Xavier. “Okay.”

We walked out into the hallway. Xavier turned left, and we kept going, through a long hallway to the north end of the house, through the French doors and into the other side of the garden. A path of decomposed granite started at the door and veered right, running through the orchard to the northeast side of the hill bordering the cliff.

Xavier started on the path, turned, graceful, and smiled at me. He really was very handsome. Almost as handsome as Alessandro Sagredo, but it was a different kind of beauty. Xavier looked like he would be perfect for the lead role in some angsty show about rich teenagers in a prep school. There was something sophisticated but nonchalant about him. Alessandro looked like he needed a sword and a hat with feathers.